[ak4g]

If this was illegal surveillance, then obviously it wasn't within the scope of what's allowed by said anti-terror laws.

This doesn't add up for me yet, because I don't understand what the supposed motive is. Do the police have much interest in journalists accounts? I mean really, what's the thinking here? Are London police ignoring murders of journalists? The UK is hardly an autocracy.

Frankly we should wait to see what the IPCC says. This could easily be entirely fabricated, the only corroboration was information that would be accessible to cybercriminals, not anything that implicates law enforcement specifically.

[cies]

> The UK is hardly an autocracy.

Not only autocracies do this kind of evil. Especially now that the (deeps state) ruling class consists mainly of capitalist, you can see that the police targeting dissidents fits a clear motive.

[richmarr]

> Especially now that the (deeps state) ruling class consists ...

Sorry I don't think you should state conspiracy theories as fact without someone calling you on it. There are reasons for police to spy on activists (even illegally) without needing to assert the existence of a "deep state"

EDIT: to clarify, above where I say "reasons" I mean just that, not "reasons that I necessarily agree with"

[TheOtherHobbes]

And those reasons would be... what?

These are people with political views the government disapproves of. They are not bomb-throwing anarchists or people with a history of violence. They are not organising or threatening acts of public violence.

This is entirely a free speech issue.

[gpvos]

Yes, the police can be in the wrong. But that's not reason (yet) to drag in conspiracy theories.

[richmarr]

Internal politics, personal ambition, hammer-nail syndrome if an team or department has run out of other people to investigate, personal vendettas, jilted lovers, sexual obsession, regular obsession. No idea... but it doesn't take a huge amount of imagination to think of some, and doesn't require us to believe in conspiracies.

[DanBC]

Environmental groups had plans to shut down nuclear reactors by blocking water cooling pipes in the sea.

Animal rights protestors have firebombed[1] several UK department stores (for selling fur), and abattoirs and milk distribution depots; dug up a corpse from a grave and held the body hostage; rescued animals from labs and caused damage to the labs;

Far right groups have rallies that attract considerable violence; an English politician was murdered by a far right extremist.

Illegal surveillance is obviously, unambiguously, wrong. The people who did it need to face both disciplinary action and criminal prosecution.

[cies]

I do not consider potential property damage to be a form of terrorism (or otherwise a danger to the public). Potential property damage is not something that I consider a reason for surveillance. We can wait till the damage happens and the go look for the perpetrators.

There's real "people harming" evil all over our societies. Evil towards rather innocent people that destroys lives and kills, often benefiting the perpetrators (financially, or by pushing their agenda). These, to me, are the only crimes that need tough surveillance.

[richmarr]

> I do not consider potential property damage to be a form of terrorism...

So under your definition of terrorism someone needs to be injured? You're diverging from the dictionary a little there.

[ionised]

That is not terrorism, it's criminal damage.

[DanBC]

"noun: the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims."

Firebombing department stores to stop them selling fur is terrorism by most definitions of the word.

Don't forget that arson is a particular type of criminal damage and carries much heavier sentences because it's so dangerous.

[jimnotgym]

In Canada Police spied on journalists who were investigating police corruption https://www.cpj.org/blog/2017/02/surveillance-of-journalists...

[cies]

Cases dissident surveillance are all over the internet:

https://www.google.nl/search?q=surveillance+of+activists

https://www.google.nl/search?q=surveillance+of+dissidents

[mattmanser]

There's been scandals in the UK recently of the Met using undercover police infiltrating peaceful groups and then attempting to incite them to violence.

No-one even knows why they were infiltrating them in the first place. The Met has got seriously out of control. Undercover officers with crazy fake identities not investigating crimes but acting as stasi agents.

This is not a surprise nor particularly unbelievable.

[cies]

> No-one even knows why they were infiltrating them in the first place.

Talk to some anarchists, activists and others that may be labeled as dissidents by the capitalists ruling class. They will clearly tell you their motives: keep the status quo from being seriously challenged, allowing the rich get richer at the expense of the broader societies and the environment they exploit.

[Lagged2Death]

This doesn't add up for me yet, because I don't understand what the supposed motive is.

Authoritarians (like cops, broadly speaking) have always tried to spy on people who might subvert their own authority and the status quo, like protestors, activists, and the journalists who cover such things and who keep in touch with such people. It has ever been thus.

Social reformers sometimes actually change things - think of the labor movement, the civil rights movement - but foreign terror against random civilians usually only re-enforces the social order and the status of cops. The cops are, and have historically been, more concerned with domestic journalists than with foreign terrorists or even actual criminals.

"Cops caught spying on journalists and activists, won't even apologize" has been a pretty common headline for many decades.

[ikurei]

> This doesn't add up for me yet, because I don't understand what the supposed motive is.

Journalists may have information that the state may want to know. For instance, you'd want to know if a new Snowden is leaking info to more Guardian journalists. It's wrong and worrisome, of course, but I'm not surprised in the least.

[adrianN]

Once you set up the technology that enables this kind of police work, laws rarely suffice to stop its use.

[DanBC]

No one has set up the technology that allows this, which is why the police had to break the law and use hackers outside the country to do this.

The police had legal surveillance powers available to them, but chose not to use them.

Now they face both disciplinary action and criminal prosecution; and the victims can sue for damages.